108 THE FLORA OF THE DAKOTA GROUP. 



l)(>tli the leaves figured here are essentially broader than any of those figured 

 by authors, but not differhig in a marked degree from the characters descrilied 

 by Saporta. They nierel}' represent a large form of the species. 



Habitat: Ellsworth County, Kansas. Nos. 167 and G79 of the collec- 

 tion of the University of Kansas. Collected by A. Wellington and E. P. 

 West. 



Oreodaphnk cretacea Lesq. 



Oret. Fl., p. 81, PI. xxx, Fig. 5 ; Oret. aud Tert. Fl., p. 55. 



Order MONIMIACE^. 



Tribe ATHEROSPERME^E. 



Laurelia prim^va, sp. IIOV. 

 PI. XX, Fig. 8. 



Leaf thick, coriaceous, with surface polished, rhomboidal, entire and 

 cuneiform from the middle downward, undulately obtusely dentate above; 

 penninerved ; primary nerve thick; secondaries mixed, camptodrome or 

 craspedodroine; intermediate tertiaries as long as the secondaries, diversely 

 forking and anastomosing obliquely or at right angles by nervilles. 



The leaf, which is beautifully preserved, is 7.5"" long, 4..5"" broad in 

 its widest part below the middle, and .has a peculiar mixed nervation some- 

 what difficult to describe. The secondaries, at an angle of divergence of 

 40°, are mostly crasi)edodrome ; but the upper (ines evidently curve in bows 

 ([uite near the borders, where they anastomose with somewhat thinner 

 tertiaries, which, like the secondaries, and intermediate to them, either join 

 the borders or branch and anastomose in curves with the secondaries, which 

 are moreover connected to them by short nervilles Hi right angles. The 

 secondaries are only slightly thicker than the tertiaries and their branches. 

 The borders are finely, deei)ly imdidate or obtusely dentate uj) to the apex, 

 entire from below the middle to the base ; the petiole is l)roken. 



The affinity of this leaf with the genus Laurelia is indicated in fossil 

 plants bv L. rrdiviva IJng. (Sylloge, i)t. 3, p. 71, PI. xxiv, Figs. 4-9), and 

 by a number of living species. Six leaves of the genus are represented by 

 self-impression in Ettingshausen's Neidioll., Char, der Eoc. Eu., Figs. 126, 

 131, 138-140, i)p. S,S-<»(). L. amiiat/ca Poir. (L. srniprrvirens Tul), of Chili, 

 is in the form, size, and the thick texture of its leav'es, as well as in the type 

 of nervation, remarkably similar to the fossil species. 



